Pieces of Nothing
by KT the Shimmer Skank
Summary: To be beautiful, used, naïve, delusional, angry, and alone: a glance into Manny's universe. [complete]
1. everything is alright

**Pieces of Nothing**--

By: KT the Shimmer Skank

Rating: R for language, drug use, strong sexuality, and blood.

Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi. Nor do I own "Breathe" by Michelle Branch or any of the songs used in subsequent chapters (once the story is complete I shall list them all and their artists in the last chapter). I make no profit, don't sue me.

Author's Notes: Set in Manny's 11th grade year. This story won't be overly long, only three or four chapters, unless I get giddy and decide to write a few more. Every chapter will probably be a songfic. Please take notice of the above notes on rating, and be aware that this is an intense story that delves into matters of madness and depression. Also, I just want to say that I do NOT mean to imply that everyone classified as clinically depressed is a raving lunatic; this just happens to be this girl's story. I credit inspiration to my many disturbed friends, my own Pepsi-induced insanity, the film "Thirteen," and of course the naïve and fucked-up Degrassi character that this is about. I also must thank Lane, who is my savior like always and helped me brainstorm title ideas.

Update: Yeah so, bullshit policy about no songfics has caused me to go back and take out the lyrics. Eh, the chapters were too long anyway. And, by the way, this is extremely AU; the first chapter was written even before I'd seen Accidents Will Happen.

o o o o o

I was on the verge of madness. It couldn't be stopped. I sat cross-legged, back pressed against the side of my bed, chewing on my fingers. I had started with my nails, but when I had bitten off as much of them as I could stand, I resigned myself to softly gnawing on my fingers. I was dying, going insane. I hugged my knees close to my body, just to keep me still. But that was useless. My feet kept tapping, my teeth kept chewing. I wanted to get up and find something to eat. Anything to keep my teeth busy. There were crumbs all over me, all over my bed and my floor. Crumbs of crackers, mini-muffins, Skittles, Corn Flakes. Little things, to nibble on, to grind my teeth against to fight the yearning. Empty crumpled soda cans littered the floor as well. There was a bottle of water I kept nearby. I would gnaw on the malleable plastic red tip and drink from it periodically like a helpless infant to a tit. Slurrrp. Slurrrp. Munch, munch, munch. I wanted more, but I gave up trying to feed the hunger that would not stop.

I knew that I was dying. There was no specific sign, I suppose. I simply knew in my mind, with total clarity, that death was certain. There was an emptiness, a restlessness within me that refused to be satisfied. Oh, it burned. It burned from within, from depths of myself unknown. It was an _aching_. A burning desire. I was thirsty. I was hungry. For what I did not know, but I felt the need screaming inside of me. I gnawed and twitched and tapped and clicked, aching for a release from my restless cravings. I cranked my music up loud, suffocating myself in it, but it made no difference. My appetite was insatiable.

I picked up an empty can of Dr. Pepper and stood up. I squeezed it rapidly, rhythmically in my hand as I paced around the room. Michelle Branch poured over me so loudly. Not loud enough, of course. Nothing was ever enough anymore. I liked her music. It served to ease some of the anxiety when I started losing myself like this. She sang of love, but it was so wonderfully _indifferent_. The songs lacked any conviction. There was no longing or burning, such as what one would find with real love. The words she wrote were beautiful but simple enough to fit into predictable rhymes and hooks. The emotions were strong and yet so meaningless. It wore the mask of hurt and joy and all that went with such emotion, but it gave none of the commitment. It was pretend passion, riding on harmless waves of saccharine acoustic guitar riffs. It was happiness dressed as sorrow.

I twisted the thin aluminum of the can and split it in two. I tore the two halves into little slivers of burgundy and silver metal, sprinkling them to the ground like snow. I was going mad. I was dying. I left my bedroom and walked, loudly, through the halls of my house. I rubbed my fingers together involuntarily. I was a prisoner. My parents had hidden my car keys again. It was my punishment for lying to them. I said I was at Emma's, but I was really at a party. But so what if I lied? Crazy people lie. It can't be helped. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere for three weeks. Oh, if they only knew. If they only knew how cruel it was to trap me here. Didn't they know I'd simply scratch and chew myself away if I couldn't get out?

They didn't understand. They never had. Oh, sure, they knew I was broken. I mean, anyone could see that there was something not quite right here. They tried to fix me with doctors and pills, but they never saw what the flaws really were. They didn't know that I was a fire, with nothing left but embers. I kept feeding the flame, but it did not want to burn. I was left with constant and overpowering need. It was emotional as much as it was physical, and there was no hurt nor pleasure great enough to please it.

I began to dig, over-turning couch cushions and knocking adorable knick-knacks off the mantel. This house was only so big. There were only so many crevices in which to hide a set of car keys. I absolutely would not let them keep me here. I couldn't stand to deal with aching while being forced to look at nothing but the walls that I hated. The walls of a place full of hate and raised voices. The place where they told me what to wear and what to do and who I was allowed to be with. I wasn't allowed to think or speak or want anything. I was afraid to even dream, afraid they could see inside my head and want to control everything in there as well. It didn't matter in the end, though. They couldn't make me who they wanted me to be, and they couldn't keep me here.

I found my freedom when I was on my stomach, my arm shoved completely beneath the entertainment system. I felt my fingers curl around familiar shapes and I pulled back my arm, ecstatic to see my fuzzy pink kitty key ring in my hand. I brushed the dust off my clothes and ran outside, where the rain was pounding down in big fat drops. I slid quickly into my car and started it, tossing my damp black hair over my shoulder carelessly as I adjusted my mirrors. I was gone before I could even register my glee. I watched the house get smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, getting swallowed up by the rain, and I was glad. _I cannot be caged_, I thought. _I'll go crazy if I'm caged._

I drove faster than I should have. But I didn't care. The rain came down and I could hear each droplet that slammed against my car. The water on metal sounded like thousands and thousands of shrill screams echoing on top of one another. I cried. I couldn't help it. I wasn't sad, but my feelings still erupted from me without my permission. The glowing needle on my speedometer swung past 60 and the streets flew by so, so fast. Not fast enough, of course, but just enough so that it gave me the fleeting feeling that maybe, maybe I could feel alive again.

My body painfully jerked forward as I pulled up next to the curb and slammed on the brakes. I cut off the ignition and climbed out of the car. The rain had gotten wilder, heavier, and it engulfed the neighborhood in a ghost-like beauty. I felt like if I stood in one place too long, I would forget where I was and just be lost in rain forever. I ran quickly to the front door of the house.

Beads of cold rain dripped from me onto Craig's porch. A white cloud of breath hovered around my mouth as I rapped loudly on the door. I waited, listening. I heard his footsteps. When he opened the door I watched his face, shifting from its original cool and relaxed expression into one of shock and concern. But then he registered my presence completely, and I saw a familiar look in his eyes of exasperation. He wasn't happy to see me, it seemed.

"Manny," he said unenthusiastically. It sounded so good when he said it. He made it sound so simple, so complete. Everything I wasn't. "What are you doing here?"

I didn't have an answer. I only knew that I was lost, and the only way to find myself was to be with Craig. I was just Manny to him. Braindead and beautiful and kissable and annoying. I always knew where I stood with him. Regardless of what he said or did, I always knew what he was really thinking.

I smiled, for God knows why. "I was just thinking about you," I said playfully. I looked into his eyes and saw my dripping reflection.

"I thought you were grounded." There was an obvious exhaustion in his voice; I tired him. I wore him down. I ached inside him like a sickness.

"Yeah, but... Who cares, right? I felt like seeing you." I touched his arm. He pulled away. I started feeling sufficiently embarrassed. Warm tears began to glaze over my eyes.

He looked at me for a long time, a hundred years, it seemed. I listened to the rain as it ground on the earth. I started chewing on tendrils of my wet hair, gradually moving to my fingers again. They tasted like fresh rain.

"You look... terrible. You're soaking wet." He sighed heavily. "I guess you'd better come inside." He reluctantly moved aside and I stepped into his house, immediately feeling warmer all over.

I followed him in a maddening daze to the living room, where he placed me on the couch and wrapped an afghan around me. It itched against my wet skin. I pulled it off and started scratching, scratching, but I couldn't make the itching go away. I started crying again even though I really didn't want to. I just wanted to sit with Craig and kiss and be happy. But I itched so badly and my head was spinning so fast.

Craig stared at me with his eyes open wide. There was an unusual sort of quality to that look in his eyes. Like his emotion was undecided, stuck somewhere between worried and mad as hell. He didn't want me to be there. But he didn't want me to cry, either.

"Shh, shh, Manny," he said, his voice cracking slightly. He pet my soaking hair and gently grabbed my hand. He gasped and let go of it again. "Manny, your fingers are bleeding! What the hell happened?" He gazed at me again in confusion, and the familiar struggle of whether to embrace me or be disgusted by me was easy to spot in his eyes.

"Kiss me, Craig."

He groaned impatiently. "Manny..."

"You have to! You have to kiss me!" I laughed through my tears. I was breathing spastically, still tearing at my flesh with my fingertips. "I'm dying. I'm going to die tonight." I buried my face in his shoulder because, oh, he felt so warm.

Reluctantly, he accepted my presence on his body and continued to stroke my hair softly. "It's going to be okay. You're not going to die. Just... it'll be okay."

When he held me, it made the bad feelings go away. He wasn't enough, of course. The unsettling feeling of death still made me shake all over, but the strength of his arms served to calm some of the rattling in my head. I began to kiss his neck, to suck softly at it in hopes of getting the nourishment I so desperately needed.

And then he dropped me, let me fall, and I was cold again. He got off the couch and left me there with nothing but myself and an itchy orange afghan.

"Can I get you something?" he said, trying so hard to be supportive but inevitably his irritation was showing through. "Would you like a glass of water?"

I tilted my head back and rested it against the back of the couch. I looked at the ceiling and started counting spots on the tiles. "I'm not thirsty," I replied, even though that was such a lie. I was all dried-up inside, but I didn't want Craig's water to revive me. It wouldn't be enough, I knew. Nothing was enough and I was more than ready to give up.

Craig went into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with the glass of water I hadn't asked for. I took the glass in my hand and stared at it in confusion. I held it front of me and watched the water refract the light, and I sniffled. "This glass of water is just like my life."

Craig stood there uncomfortably and looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"The glass is full, but totally transparent. It's just like me." I closed my eyes and carelessly tossed the glass across the room. I heard it shatter, and I proceeded to rub my throbbing temples.

Craig was livid. "Manny, what are you doing! Just what is the matter with you? I can't have you over here going all psycho on me, okay? I just can't..." I opened my eyes again. He nervously ran his fingers through his hair as he thought for a moment, shaking his head all the while. He then moved to clean up the mess I'd made.

"I told you I was dying," was my only explanation.

He swept up the glass and tossed it into the trash can, then sopped up the water with a rag. As he cleaned I continued to stare at the ceiling, desperate for something to put my focus on. Otherwise I'd go mad again.

When he was finished he marched back over to me and started pacing. He opened his mouth several times to speak but didn't quite capture the words he wanted. Finally he sat down on the coffee table directly across from me and looked me in the eye. His gaze made me anxious and I started itching again.

"When was the last time you took your pill, Manny?" he said, trying to stay as calm as he could.

I stared at him blankly and shrugged.

He laughed tiredly and shook his head. "It's kind of important that you keep track of these things, you know? No wonder you're so out of your mind tonight. You have to take your pills, Manny."

I took hold of his hand and squeezed it, desperate to make him see that I was DYING, and that it didn't matter whether or not I took some stupid pill because I was going to DIE anyway. "Listen to me, I'm dying. I don't have time to worry about the last time I took my pills." Hot tears ran down my already tear-exhausted face. "I mean, look at me!"

"I am looking at you! You're a total mess! They call them anti-depressants for a reason, you know. So you don't get depressed and go fucking crazy."

"No. Craig. Jesus. You're not _listening _to me." I stared at him impatiently as I scratched furiously at my left wrist. I was lost. I was screaming. But Craig couldn't hear me. He could kiss me and hate me and fuck me and care about me and worry about me, but never through any of it could he ever hear me. This friendship we pretended to have was just a game, because even when we were together, we were in two different worlds.

He shook his head dismissively. "Do you have any of your pills with you?"

I reach out and placed his head between my hands, forcing him to look into my scorched-red eyes. "Listen to me! I don't need my pills, I need you to help me. Help me, please. I'm dying. I'm dying."

He pulled away and sighed with great exhaustion. "Are there any in your car?"

I didn't answer him, but he walked away anyway. I heard him pick up my keys off the floor where I'd dropped them. The front door opened and shut again, and I was left alone.

I buried my face in my hands, suffocating myself and not caring. I could taste the blood on my fingers. I began to shake uncontrollably as my mind lost its bearings yet again. I needed to scream, or run, or explode. The world was spinning. I couldn't breathe. I was bubbling with desire inside, desire for relief that would never come, but instead of going crazy I just kept head planted firmly in my hands. I erupted into tears and screams until my voice went hoarse.

The front door swung open again.

"Craig?" said the sleepy voice of a little girl from the stairs. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, Angela," Craig's voice replied. "Just go back to bed. Everything's fine."

"Who's that?"

"No one, just go to bed."

I do not know whether or not Angela went to bed, but a few moments later Craig was at my side with a bottle of pills in one hand and another glass of water in the other. "Manny, here. Let's take on of these, okay?"

I sobbed weakly in response.

He moved onto the couch and sat beside me. He pet my hair softly and tried to calm me down. His attempt was so naive; he had no idea of the madness that raged within me. He continued to stroke the wet skin of my face, cooing meaningless phrases to coax me into taking the pill. He didn't hear me. No pill could save me. Nothing could save me. I was too far gone.

"You'll feel so much better once you take it."

That was a lie. I knew, even in that state of mind when I was so far from reality, that better was something I could never feel again. I kept crying and shoving him away.

At last I gave in. My voice was all but gone, my heart was racing, and I no longer had the strength to fight him off. I exhaled, slowly, and opened my mouth. He reached inside and placed a little blue pill on my tongue. He brought the glass of water to my lips and I swallowed, in between sobs, and felt it travel down my throat.

"Shh," he said softly, holding me and petting me. I wondered if this was the same way he dealt with Angela when she was upset or sick with a cold. I nuzzled my face against his chest, because he let me, and even though I knew that it didn't change anything and that everything was a lie, I still felt some semblance of a calm set over me.

In a daze, I felt him pull me off the couch and help me walk out to his car. I road with him the entire way with my face pressed up against the window, watching the rain go on and on and on and it seemed like forever, but we finally reached my house. He walked me all the way inside and to my bedroom. He stuck me underneath my covers like dust that you just sweep under the couch because you don't want to look at it, and you don't know what else to do with it.

I heard him leave, and for the longest time I just stared at the walls in the darkness of my room. The rain only grew stronger as time passed, and I wondered how long it could possibly keep up its pace. I watched the red numbers on my alarm clock, to keep track of the rain. But the rain lasted longer than I could. I eventually fell asleep, forgetting all about the fact that I was supposed to die tonight.


	2. the loneliness nobody notices

Song: #41 by Dave Matthews Band. Doesn't belong to me.

Someone was pounding on my door. I opened my eyes and saw sunlight through the window. When I exhaled, I felt surreal memories escape from my chest, as the foggy, rain-spattered events of the night before came into focus. Birds sang outside my window, and the harsh knocking continued on my door.

"Manny!" someone yelled. It was Paige, and she was trying her hardest to sound patient. It wasn't working. "Wake up, hon, it's Saturday!"

_Fuck_.

Reality came back and hit me hard. But I guess that's what you get for waking up. Paige kept screaming and banging on the door, and at last I decided to lift my heavy head and get out of bed. As I stood up all the blood rushed to my head and the walls of my room vibrated around me. I was still dressed in yesterday's clothes, now wrinkled and disheveled. Still a little damp from the rain.

I opened the door and saw Paige standing there, shimmering and squeaky clean in her spirit squad uniform, with the most furious and impatient look I'd ever seen on her face. I noticed my mother looming behind her with an equally unhappy expression.

"Oh. Paige, hi," I said hoarsely, ushering her inside my room quickly. "I'll be right out, Mama," I added before my mother could get a word in, slamming the door in her face and locking it shut.

Left in the silence of my room, I felt Paige's angry stare bearing down on me. "I overslept," I said simply.

"Obviously, hon. And, FYI, you look like someone tied you to the back of a truck and dragged you through the streets. Get your stuff together. You'll have to get ready as soon as we get to the school; we compete at 10:30." She turned to my vanity mirror and straightened her hair, as if scolding me was such hard work that it had left her perfect golden locks disheveled. I watched her reflection for a moment before she saw me. She stopped and glared into the mirror at me. "Um, hon? Hello? Huge competition today, already running late?"

"Right," I said, slowly. I caught a glimpse of my own reflection, and realized just how badly not taking my pill had torn me up. My skin was pale and tallow, eyes watery-pink and sunken in. My fingers were covered in red-raw marks and scabs. My lips were sore and swollen from the chewing. I was a genuine fucking mess. And yet somehow, still there was still some kind of beauty there.

It was funny, in a way. The pills I was on had become so utterly integrated into my routine that I hardly noticed them, and yet their absence was enough to make my universe fall to pieces. It was crushing to realize that without my pills I was nothing. I was a blank mosaic, and it was only pretty colored pills, organized by the days of the week, that kept it all from coming undone. I wanted something to throw, to crush my mirror and get rid of that reflection. I wanted to be more than just pills and a pretty face.

I carelessly gathered various articles of importance, pom poms and cigarettes, lip gloss and ribbons, and shoved them into my black messenger bag. Paige and I were out the door before I could even register it. That happened often; me, being so lost in thoughts that I stopped paying attention to the world around me. I was seated in the passenger seat of her mom's minivan, and I saw my mom barrel after us.

"Manuella! Where are you going?" she yelled, her face melting anger and confusion together. "Where is your car?"

Paige glanced over at me questioningly from the driver's seat.

"Just go," I said to her. I had too much of a headache to stick around and go through the tedious ordeal of explaining things to my mother. Every time I turned around she would be there, hovering, screaming, crying. Always begging for explanations. She seemed to think I was hiding things from her, but she was wrong. There were no explanations. I wanted answers just as much as she did.

"Manuella! Come back here right now!" She began marching towards the car.

"Paige, start the car NOW." I popped my head out of the window and waved casually to my mother. "Bye, Mommy! Big spirit squad meet today, can't be late!" She was still storming towards me. Chasing me down like rain clouds. I blew her a kiss as Paige turned on the ignition and pulled away, leaving my mother screaming in the street.

"So what was THAT all about?" Paige asked with mild interest as we drove.

"I snuck out last night. I left my car at Craig's."

Paige wrinkled her nose and furled her brow, completely disrupting that perfect face of hers. That was the thing about Paige. She was a pretty girl, but an ugly person. "Ew, hon. Why do you still hang around with that loser?"

I wanted to laugh. _In case you hadn't noticed, Paige, I'm not exactly on the top of the social ladder myself these days_, I wanted to tell her. Instead I simply shrugged as I pulled a cigarette out of my bag. I held it between my lips as I lit it with my hot pink lighter. I took a slow drag and let the toxins fill my lungs, seep into my blood system. I turned my face towards the open window and exhaled heavily. Gradually, I began to stop feeling like my head was pounding and my heart racing a thousand beats a second. My nerves were calming, I was waking up, and I was drifting into the dull, numb state of mind I was used to. Nothing like the madness of the night before.

Paige's face progressively continued to sour as she snuck extremely obvious and intentional glances in my direction. "Do you really have to do that in my mom's car?" she snapped at last, when she realized I was ignoring her cold stares the same way I ignored everyone else who looked at me. "I mean, it's bad enough that you're totally setting yourself up for like, every kind of cancer, not to mention the perpetual stink and yellow teeth. Is it really necessary to cause me and my car the same suffering?"

I ran my fingers through my hair before resting my hand on the edge of the window. We slowed to a stop at a red light. I flicked my cigarette and watched as the ashes danced to the ground and landed in a dirty puddle in the road. The weather was miserable. It was muggy, cold, and wet; filthy from a night of endless rain. "Paige..." My voice was weak and raspy. A night's worth of nonsensical screaming and crying had taken it's toll. I didn't even want to think about the effect it would have on my cheering ability. "Just back off. It's early, and I really don't think you want to deal with me when I haven't had my first smoke. Especially not after the night I had."

She rolled her eyes and made an angry scoffing noise in her throat. "Ugh. It's just gross. And totally unhealthy, hon. You're going to wind up looking forty by the time you're twenty. You've got to quit sooner or later."

"It balances me out," I tried to explain, unable to mask the slight whine in my voice. It was impossible to make Paige Michalchuk understand anything. She organized the world according to her own rules and opinions, and anything that didn't follow her logic simply did not exist to her. "All the drugs they've got me on just make my system get all out of wack. I have to smoke to stay chill." I paused, took a heavy drag, flicked away more ashes. I looked down at my lap. "I'm trying to wean myself off the Paxil. Once I'm off that, then I'll quit smoking."

Paige looked at me skeptically. "Really now. And um, how's that going for you?"

I looked at my reflection in the side mirror and thought about my visit with Craig. I thought about my soaked clothes, my bleeding fingers, the broken glass, how I felt like I was dying. I would never quit smoking. Because I would never be stable without the constant stream of meds in my system. Apparently I couldn't even make through a single day without the Paxil. Instead of getting stronger, I needed pills more than ever. "It's going all right."

I savored the last puff before tossing the butt out the window. I laid my head down on my arm on the window's edge and let the gloomy post-rain air run through my hair as the streets flew by.

The front of Degrassi Community School was blocked by rows of big yellow buses from all the schools we were competing against. As Paige and I hurried to the front door, I noticed the wet pavement was littered with discarded candy wrappers and colored flyers; things that we, as the hosting squad, were supposed to pass out to the other teams as they arrived. I imagined Paige was pretty angry she'd had to miss her meet-and-greet to come and fetch the slacker.

"All right, Manny, pick up the pace. We've got fifteen minutes to get you looking un-horrible before we go on." She snapped her fingers to indicate the speed she wanted from me.

The school was swarming with people when we went inside. Degrassi students were running around, just here for an excuse to hang out with each other. Parents of the visiting squads were wandering around, trying to find their way in this unfamiliar school. Girls in every color uniform skipped back and forth hurriedly, crying out to one another for last minute hair checks and trying to locate music and pom poms. Student council members were busy in the middle of it all, selling snacks and handing out maps and directing the flow of traffic. I tried to walk in perfect stride behind Paige so that when we passed Emma Nelson's refreshment table, she didn't see me.

I was well aware of the many curious eyes upon me as we shoved through the crowd and at last arrived at Ms. Roche's classroom, which had been assigned as our dressing room. The stares from of the rest of the spirit squad were no different. I was a total train wreck, stumbling in just in time, whereas the rest of them had been there all morning getting ready. Not all of their expressions were the same. Some were shocked, others amused, and many just resentful. But naturally, not a single face was sympathetic.

I was too used to the stares to give a shit. I barely even knew they were there.

"Well?" Paige barked at the team. "Stop staring and keep stretching! We've been working way too hard to go out there unprepared." Gradually, the eyes drifted away from me and the girls went back to getting ready. Paige was stressed, and no one really wanted to mess with Paige when she was stressed. She turned to me and snapped her fingers again. "All right, hon, let's hustle."

I dumped the contents of my bag onto one of the desks that had been pushed against the wall. I carelessly peeled off yesterday's clothes and wriggled into my spirit squad uniform. I propped up my mirror in the chalk tray and hunched over to apply my make-up while Paige worked my brush furiously through my hair. In no time at all, the tiredness had been wiped clean from my face. The imperfections were masked, and only the beautiful could be seen. I tied the clean white laces of my tennis shoes and rubbed lavender blossom lotion on my legs. I was yet again the Manny the world was used to seeing; gorgeous and unreachable.

Ms. Hatzilakos appeared in our doorway with a blue clipboard in hand. "Come on, ladies, you're supposed to be on deck," she said. There was a flurry of blue and yellow movement as everyone gathered up their poms and shuffled out of the room.

We were told to wait in the hall in front of the locker room. We couldn't see the gym floor, but we could hear Bardell's cheer squad finishing up their performance. A few minutes later we were joined by Oscar and J.T., our only male members. J.T. very strategically avoided meeting my eye. I was used to it. He and I could never be friends again, but we did just fine as team mates, so long as we never looked right at each other. The squad continued to wait in silence for the big moment. Paige was biting her nails impatiently. Hazel was pacing. Tiffany and Janell were silently going through the motions of the routine. J.T., Oscar, and a few of the girls had formed a small circle and were saying a quiet prayer for good luck.

I folded my arms and looked at my feet. I wasn't nervous. Spirit squad was the one thing that didn't make me nervous. I knew the routine backwards and forwards, I could whip it out for you at the drop of a hat and I would do it better than anyone else. I didn't need luck or God. I didn't believe in those things any more. I only needed me. People could say all kinds of nasty things about me, and most of them might even be true. But I still knew my shit, and I was good at it, and that was something no one could take away.

Liberty stepped inside, holding a clipboard that looked just like Ms. H's. "Degrassi Community School, you may now take the floor," she said in her most business-like voice.

"All right guys, this is it," Paige said to us as we filed out. She gave us her last words of wisdom just before we ran out onto the floor. "Don't screw it up."

I fell into position for the routine, front row center, of course. The music blasted through the cheap gym speakers and my head popped up, revealing a smile so bright and wide it could never have been real. It was a performance, and it took over me. I smiled and clapped and bounced and hit every move. I was very good. For a moment I forgot that I was Manny the whore, Manny the psycho, Manny the pill-popper. I was just a spirit squad member, a single piece of the team, putting on a good show. For a few minutes people could look at me and for once not have a single bad thing to say about me.

It was very brief. All those weeks of practice just for three lousy minutes in front of the judges. So much build up for nothing at all. The song was over before I knew it and we were soon back in our dressing room. Everyone else was still high on the adrenaline of the moment, chatting excitedly to one another about how it had gone. But I just sat there quietly, away from everything. The moment was over, I was the resident psychoslut again. I needed a cigarette.

"Great job, guys," Paige said, looking at all of us with pride. "The award ceremony is at two-thirty, so you're all free to roam around and watch the other teams. Just make sure you're back no later than two-fifteen."

The talking picked up where it left off. I turned my back on the excitement and started picking up all the things I had carelessly poured out of my bag in my rush to get ready. I wanted to tune everything out, as I had gotten so good at doing. But when I heard her voice, it stood out above all the noise. I couldn't help myself. I had to turn around.

"Hey!" Ashley Kerwin called from the doorway. She looked in and smiled at J.T., who had just pulled off the head of his mascot costume. He waved and smiled back.

"Come on in," he said to her. She made her way towards him and placed a sugary kiss on his cheek. It was ridiculous, really, since she was so much taller than him. She had to bend down to meet his face, like he was a little kid. But no one else seemed to find it as funny as I did. They just watched with gooey eyes, like it was the cutest thing ever.

"You did awesome," she said. She grinned with a sort of sarcastic mischievousness. "Liberty's going to kill me for leaving my post at the drink station, but I'm glad I got to see it. You were great."

J.T. raised an eyebrow and laughed. "And since when are you afraid of Liberty? Aren't YOU the president?"

"By title, sure. But as far as Liberty's concerned, she's the commander in chief of... well, the entire universe, really."

The two of them continued to laugh and smile at each other, throwing in subtle touches every few seconds. I could not fight the wave of bitterness that hit me. J.T. and Ashley were the absolute "it" couple. Everyone thought it was just so fabulous that they got together. How adorable it was that they'd ended up dating. They'd been dating for four months then, and the initial irony still hadn't lost its shock value to me. They were a walking reminder of all my mistakes, of everything I used to have but had lost track of along the way. Sometimes when I watched them, so in love, I wondered if I would ever get any of it back again. It was laughable to even try to look back and understand the person I once was. I had been falling for so long, I had gone through so much, that I couldn't see anything further than the hole I was in. Innocence was a country on the other side of the ocean. In all honesty, I had long lost the desire to go back. There was only forward. The only way to keep from sinking was to keep moving.

Still, no matter how much I didn't care, it hurt to see them together.

I finished packing up my things. I put on my headphones and cranked up the volume as I left the room, left the spirit squad, left the happy couple. I kept walking all the way out of the school and went behind the building, where Radiohead and I could smoke in peace.

When I was a wide-eyed fresh arrival to the seventh grade, Ashley Kerwin was the goddess of Degrassi. She was pretty and popular and her boyfriend was pretty and popular and all her friends were pretty and popular. She was the best at everything. She had everything in the world. And yet she always seem to act as thought such a life was nothing remarkable. Like it was never really enough. Like she was just so used to being Perfect Ashley Kerwin that it was easy for her to take it all for granted. I was struggling just to keep my head above water in the sea of junior high, but Ashley waltzed a foot above the waves. My sole, naive ambition was to someday be as great as Ashley Kerwin. That was all I really wanted out of life. To be pretty and popular, just like Ashley.

The day everything changed was the day Ashley fell from grace. It was my first real party. I wore my favorite jeans, the ones with the little sparkles around the pockets. I was actually going to a party at Ashley Kerwin's house. I thought it would be the night that brought me "in." The night that would make me one of them, so that when I came back for eighth grade I would be somebody. But when I got there it was nothing like I'd thought it would be. She stumbled out of her doorway giggling, eyes bright and wide. She didn't even recognize us. She grabbed hold of Liberty and babbled nonsensically. I didn't understand what was wrong, I only knew that Perfect Ashley Kerwin was not her usual self, and it scared me. As the night went on I found out she was on drugs; ecstasy. I didn't even know what that was then. I watched as everything crumbled around her. She didn't look so pretty when she came downstairs after cheating on her popular boyfriend. Then she broke his heart, and her perfect boyfriend walked out the door and her perfect friends walked out the door and her perfect reputation was ripped to shreds and suddenly I realized Ashley Kerwin wasn't perfect at all. She was stupid and careless and lost everything with one mistake.

At first I was shocked, even hurt. I didn't know what to think. Ashley Kerwin wasn't perfect anymore. The universe shook with the vibrations of the collapse. But over time I came to accept this truth in a positive light. Why try to be like Ashley Kerwin? It became obvious to me that Manny Santos had much more to offer the world. I could be the pretty one, I could be the perfect one.

But even as an outcast loser goth, Ashley was better than me. I was the same simple Manny, but Perfect Ashley Kerwin had reinvented herself as Imperfect Ashley Kerwin, and somehow people loved her even more. Craig, especially, loved her more. He pushed me away and they grew closer, and suddenly I wanted things to be the way they were on that night, when Ashley was scum of the universe.

I guess that's why, in grade nine, it was so easy to take her boyfriend from her. I never wanted anyone to get hurt, but at the same time, it wasn't hard at all to watch Ashley's world slip through her fingers yet again. A part of me enjoyed watching something so beautiful break. Even though I damaged so much of myself in the process.

And so after all of it, Ashley ended up with J.T. What is life with out a painful dose of irony, after all? Whenever _Ashley_ made a mistake, she returned ten times stronger. When ever I made a mistake... well, that was the big difference between me and Ashley Kerwin.

I never meant to hurt J.T. That was never my intention, at any point, regardless of what the rumors claimed. We grew up together. We chased the ice cream man together and sang in the third grade choir together. J.T. knew me better than anyone else, save Emma. But the Manny he knew was the little girl he grew up with. The Manny he started dating at the end of grade nine had long been broken. I had been hurt, and instead of mending the wounds, I just covered them up. I let them rot. It was all I knew how to do. I was dying inside, and I was completely alone. It was funny because in a sick way, it was everything I'd wanted. I was pretty and even popular, in a sense, because there wasn't a soul in the school who hadn't heard of Manny Santos. There wasn't a single day I didn't dread going to school. Sometimes I felt like the whispers and giggles were so loud they might have swallowed me up as I walked down the hall.

J.T. wanted to be good for me. All he wanted was to be the good boyfriend he knew he could be, and have a happy, simple relationship. He wanted us to work out so badly. I can't blame him for that. But what he didn't understand was that I was damaged goods. I wasn't the same as I was before. I wasn't yet capable of going back to happy and simple. I still had so much healing to do. I tried pushing him away, like everyone else, but he was so persistent. He was the only one who didn't seem to hate me and finally I realized I had to grab onto him while I could. He was all I had left.

As it turned out, dating J.T. was all I had to do to climb out of the social abyss I was stuck in. Emma and Liberty started talking to me again. Toby and Kendra stopped looking at me like I was the plague. The hallway whispers hushed to nothingness, and even Ashley had moved from verbal abuse to simply ignoring me. The scarlet "S" for slut was still emblazoned on my chest, but people no longer openly pointed and laughed about it. It was almost too good to be true, and it felt somewhat bittersweet. I resented Emma for treating me like shit after the abortion, when I needed her most, and then running back to me like everything was sunshine and rainbows again without even a murmur of an apology.

I never really believed that pseudo-happiness would last for very long. I just wasn't that lucky. I was constantly afraid that everyone would go back to hating me, that everyone would abandon me again.

J.T. and I had been dating for two and a half months, and I had almost completely let go of my fears of rejection. A brand new school year was about to start and I felt like finally, I could start afresh. Things were slowly getting better. Then my older brother Phillip climbed onto the roof one night and shot himself.

You never know real sadness until you lose someone. You could almost say that loss is the only real sadness, because it's the only pain that time can't heal. Phillip was gone forever, he was never coming back, there was no more Phillip in my life. Words can't describe the emptiness of it. The entire experience was unreal. The days after Phillip's suicide felt like an eternity. I moved so swiftly from anger to sorrow to despair and back again that all of it felt like a dream. I held on for so long. For so long I told myself it was a dream. I begged God to make it untrue, to give me another chance to love my brother. It was mind-blowing to realize that this was something I couldn't fix. He was _gone_. Days turned to weeks, and he was still gone. I couldn't keep feeling so uncontrollably miserable. If I kept living like that I would have ended up killing myself, too. So instead I just numbed myself to it.

I just kind of, gave up. My whole family did. My dad was ruined. He stopped interrogating me about my whereabouts all the time, he stopped caring if I went out one night and didn't come back until the next morning. I think he never really had much hope for me to begin with. Phillip was his boy. When he lost that, nothing else seemed to matter much, especially me. My mother tried to hold it all together. She dragged us to family counseling, tried to bring us closer together. It was a worthless effort. I just wanted to go to bed and sleep forever. The waking world had nothing left to offer me.

J.T., of course, was completely supportive. I didn't want him to be. I tried getting rid of him, telling him we were finished, but he just stayed. He wouldn't give up. He was always so sure he could make it work. And so I clung to him, for even longer, because there was nothing else I could do. But I deep down I was always aware that he could never make it work out the way he wanted. He could never understand. He could never even fathom. He always thought that I was getting better, but in truth I was just sinking deeper. The more people reached out to me, the further away I drifted.

It was around October, when I'd gotten very good at pretending like I was just fine, that the nightmares started coming. I started dying in my dreams each night. I dreamed of children eating me alive. I saw myself kill my brother. I was the murderer. I was the victim. Death was everywhere, consuming my every thought, driving me insane. I tried to hide it but it started eating through me, bleeding out of every orifice of my body. Finally, in November, I snapped...

I shuddered where I stood behind the school building. It was all too much to think about. I took Radiohead out of my CD player and replaced it with Dave Matthews Band, which was considerably less depressing music. I whipped out another cigarette and tried to calm myself.

_Don't think about November_, I told myself. It still pained me to recall my first breakdown. It made me sick inside. It was funny, though, that even after the unmentionable events of November, J.T. still stuck around. Still thought he could make it work. Even with a girlfriend diagnosed with clinical depression and post abortion syndrome, he still wanted that perfect relationship. He still believed I was the happy little girl he shared his childhood with.

Looking back on it, that should have been the end of us. But no, the end wouldn't come until New Years. More irony and cliche for me to spiral into.

My throat suddenly got dry. I wanted some of the pink lemonade they were selling inside. But going inside meant extinguishing my cigarette and actually interacting with people, and I just wasn't up for that. I brought the cigarette to my lips again. I wished I had the strength to run to J.T. right then and tell him all the things I'd never told him. I'm sorry, I would have said, and I would have really meant it for once. Sorry for everything, from the very beginning. Sorry I chose Sully over you. Sorry I ruined so many lives. Sorry I stayed with you for so long and made you think I needed you. Sorry I told you I loved you when I didn't even know how to love. Sorry I kept so many secrets from you. Sorry I got drunk that night. Sorry about Sean. Sorry I broke your heart. Sorry I didn't even care.

But my words would have no meaning to him. Everyone knew my apologies were worthless. Words couldn't change the past. Forward. I had to keep moving forward. To move backwards would just be to relive all that pain again.

I heard a noise. By reflex I quickly tossed my cigarette to the ground and stomped it out. Emma appeared from around the corner hauling a bag of trash. She froze for a moment, slightly surprised to see me. Her face quickly soured.

"Smoking on school grounds is a misdemeanor, you know," she said dully as she carried the trash bag to the dumpster. "There's a minimum $100 fine."

"At least it's not I felony," I replied, though it wasn't catty or callous. Animosity did not really exist any more between me and Emma. There was nothing but defeat. Some lingering bitterness, perhaps, but mostly just the recognition of a stone wall that separated us. You can only hurt a person so many times before it just ceases to matter. She no longer wanted to hate me. She just wanted to stay as far away from me as possible. Who could blame her, really?

She rolled her eyes as she attempted to heave the heavy bag up and over into the dumpster. She failed. It fell and spilled some of its contents to the ground. She let out a ferocious and impatient groan, more embarrassed than she was upset. It was interesting me that Emma could still get embarrassed in front of me. As if my opinion of her had any real value any more. I walked over and bent down to help her put everything back in the bag. She opened her mouth to say something, but then just shook her head with a sigh and worked with me. When we were finished I took the bag from her hands, tied it, and tossed it into the dumpster. I tried looking her in the eye, but she kept looking anywhere but my face. She didn't want to meet my gaze. All the hurt I'd ever caused her was shining bright in my eyes.

I wished I had some way to tell her that I wouldn't ever hurt her again. That I was... sorry. Of course that was absurd. I probably would hurt her again. That's what I did, even though I didn't mean to. It was stupid to even think those things. She had hurt me, too. But when I ran into her like that, it was hard to remember that. All I could think of was my own wrong-doings. I almost liked it better when we were fighting. When it was nothing but our combined misery, I was overwhelmed with the hopelessness of it all. I could never make it better.

"You're going to miss the trophy presentation if you don't hurry up," she said as she walked away.

I exhaled. I looked over at my half-smoked cigarette, crumpled on the ground, and thought what a waste that was. The high-pitched beeping noise of my cell phone alarm went off; time for my first round of meds. I dug through my clutter of possessions until I found the plastic pill organizer. I dumped two pearly pink pills into my palm and tossed them into my dry mouth. I swallowed hard, and I desperately needed that lemonade more than ever. But I still couldn't bring myself to go inside. I sat down on the ground, back to the brick wall, well-aware that my ass was getting soaked from the wetness. I pumped Dave Matthews up louder and lit my last cigarette. No one really wanted me back inside anyway.


	3. we don't have any real friends

Song: "The Bends" by Radiohead. Don't own it.

"Way to support the team, hon," she snapped.

I was leaning against the van, waiting for her, arms folded. I slid my head phones down to my neck. "How'd we do?"

"Fourth place." She shoved a green ribbon into my hand. "Good, but not good enough to move up to the semi-finals. I could break something, I swear." Paige did not deal well with not being the best.

All around us, people were pouring out of the building, heading in every direction. I wondered vaguely how Degrassi could have held so many people at once. The halls at school were always crowded, but it never felt like there was anyone there.

"Ugh. Come on, let's jet. Trying to get out of here is going to be murder."

I looked intently at her, holding my bag closer to my chest. "Paige." She gave me one of those, "What the hell do you want, hon?" kind of looks. I thought surely I was transparent enough for her to see right through me. Everyone else did. Couldn't she just read my mind? She probably could. But she would rather force me to ask for what I wanted. She wanted to watch me squirm.

"I can't go home. My mom... Craig... she's going to ask questions and shit." My meaning, I thought, was quite obvious. I looked pleadingly at her. Couldn't she just be my friend unconditionally for once?

Paige sighed and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Sure, hon, you can come over." She pulled her hand away and started walking towards the driver's side of the van. "The 'rents are out of town anyway, so stay as long as you want."

"Thank you," I said softly as I slid into the passenger's seat. If I really _could_ stay as long as I wanted, I would never leave. I would do anything to not have to go back home again.

As we drove to her house, Paige babbled on about judging bias and how North Shoals High totally ripped their moves off of Britney's last video. I didn't really hear much of what she said. I inserted Radiohead into her CD player to help tune her out. I vaguely heard her make some comment about how she hated this depressing music, but she didn't do anything to stop me so I really didn't care. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass window.

Everything looked strange. Ugly gray clouds had crept in again and the sunlight was fading. It was barely three in the afternoon and already it seemed like evening. The houses and sidewalks seemed so unreal covered in that gray-green light. The tree branches shivered in the wind. None of it looked real to me. It seemed like all of it was just a photograph, a backdrop. I felt very far away from it all. God I was tired.

I nodded off in the fifteen or so minutes it took to get to the Michalchuk residence, and was not so gently awakened by Paige snapping her fingers in my face. I shivered all over as I came back to consciousness and I realized how cold I was. I had goose bumps on my arms and legs. I wanted to get out of my spirit squad uniform and into real clothes.

I asked Paige if I could use her shower and she agreed with a shrug, flopping onto her beige sofa with the latest copy of Seventeen in her hands. I walked up the stairs I'd come to know so well over the past few months and entered the peach-colored bathroom. It looked and smelled so fresh and clean, and I felt dirty in comparison. There was so much filth on my skin. I could still feel last night's rain, the hands of the guy I'd made out with in study hall, the mud from the asphalt behind the school, and a million other unclean things clinging to every inch of me.

I stripped down to nothing and turned on the water. I cranked the handle labeled "H" as far as it would go. White steam crept fluidly across the ceramic tile like fog. My flesh turned angry pink when I touched the water but I was so cold I didn't care. I climbed into the shower and let the scalding hot water swallow me. I felt it burn and it felt so good. It saturated my thick black hair and slid down my skin all the way to my toes. All my muscles relaxed and I wished I could feel like that all the time.

I would have stayed in there for hours, but I felt guilty. I was leaving traces of my Manny-filth over the Michalchuks' nice, neat bathroom. Why was I always doing that? Why was I always leaving pieces of myself behind wherever I went? I was never clean. I was never whole. I was always a mess.

I shut off the water and stood there for a moment, watching the water drip from my body to the ground. I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off with a fluffy peach towel. I saw a pink bathrobe hanging on the wall, assumed that it was Paige's, and wrapped it around myself.

I wondered vaguely if there was some kind of rule about that. Like, maybe it crossed some kind of boundary to walk around in your friend's robe while you were at their house. I wasn't really familiar with that kind of thing, what you could or couldn't do at a friend's house. I was eleven years old the first time I'd ever been allowed to stay at anyone's house. My parents were really strict like that. Even then, the only person I was allowed to stay with was Emma. How silly that all seemed to me as I looked back on it. I was a skilled crasher now. I'd stay wherever I could as long as it meant not going home. I would sleep anywhere. On someone's couch, in Craig's garage, in the bed of some stranger. I no longer knew about boundaries; anywhere I could bum some food and waste a few fours or more was home to me.

It had begun sprinkling outside by the time I came back downstairs. Paige licked the tip of her finger and turned the page of her magazine.

"Are you hungry, hon?" she asked without looking up as I settled in next to her on the couch. "I was thinking about ordering a pizza."

"Sure. That sounds fine."

I grabbed the huge red quilt off the back of the couch and curled up in it. I still felt so cold. I snuggled deeper into the Michalchuks' couch and took in a deep breath of my fresh peach scent. Clean and warm were two things I rarely felt.

Paige glanced at me over the top of Seventeen and chuckled. "Cozy?" she asked with playful but biting sarcasm.

"Yes, actually, I am."

She raised her eyebrows. "Well, just hog all the covers why don't you?" She tossed her magazine onto the glass coffee table and scooted closer to me. I unwrapped the quilt and readjusted it so that we could each have half. Paige snatched up the remote and turned on the TV. We watched music videos together and critiqued the styles and dance moves of everyone from Christina Aguilera to Lenny Kravitz. We chewed on the latest gossip about our fave and least fave celebrities, giggling and generally being stupid. It's funny how when no one was looking, Paige and I could almost be just like normal teenage girls.

The rain steadily increased as the minutes passed. The living room was full of that eerie rainy grayness and nothing but the technicolor glow of the television. My head was lulled into a dreamy state and I could have fallen asleep right there, curled up in Paige and her bathrobe.

I eventually grew aware that Paige wasn't watching music videos any more. I felt her eyes on my skin. It's funny how you can develop this sense of when people are looking at you. Not just looking at you, but like, _looking _at you. By then I had learned to read all kinds of eyes. Which eyes hated me, which eyes wanted to fuck me, which eyes were too shy to admit they wanted to fuck me. People are so much more obvious than they think they are.

I turned my head.

Paige smiled casually. "Manny, hon, could your hair get any more gorgeous?" she commented, as if that was the only reason she'd been watching me. She reached out and twisted her fingers through my slightly damp curls. That's another thing I could catch on to; I knew exactly when someone was making excuses to touch me. "And you don't even like, try. It's just naturally incredible hair. I'm totally jealous."

I suddenly became aware of how close she was to me. Her warmth radiated beneath the blanket we shared. She was so close I could see the acne she'd covered up with her make-up; I could see the contrast between her dark roots and the beginnings of her blonde highlights; I could smell the strawberry kiwi lip gloss on her lips. She leaned in closer, curling up to me. I wondered if she would kiss me. I could tell she wanted to. I wondered if I would let her. I probably would. I realized that there probably wasn't anyone I wouldn't let do whatever they wanted to me. Somewhere along the way I lost the will to say no.

But she didn't kiss me. Not on the lips anyway. She sighed, and frowned, and looked at me. "It's really cold," she said quietly. She cuddled next to me and placed a soft kiss on my collar bone. She laid her head on my chest without saying another word. I pulled the blanket closer and watched Jojo shake her hips on the screen. The rain drizzled steadily against the walls and I soon drifted to sleep.

When I awoke, Paige was gone, and instead I found myself sitting next to a different Michalchuk. He was eating from large bag of potato chips as he watched some hockey game. I realized I'd become somewhat unraveled in my sleep, and I discreetly readjusted my robe so that I was no longer falling out of it. Not that it mattered that much. Dylan was gay anyway, so I doubted anything of mine would catch his attention. Hell, even if he was straight, I hardly cared any more who saw my goods.

He finally noticed that I'd woken up, and tilted the bag of chips towards me. "Chip?" he offered, not taking his eyes off the game.

"No thanks," I said as I sat up. "Where's Paige?"

"She ran to the store. I think she's picking up a pizza, too. Are you staying over tonight?"

I nodded. "Are you?"

Dylan smirked. "Yeah, I promised the 'rents I'd stay home for the weekend and watch over little Paigy while they're away. Not that it really matters whether or not I'm here. Paige has done whatever she wanted to do since she was twelve years old, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon." The game went to commercial and he turned to me with fake girlish enthusiasm. "Oh my god, Manny, we could have like, a total slumber party. Girls only."

I laughed. For someone who'd been openly homosexual since he was fifteen years old, Dylan was a pretty unconvincing gay. But he knew it would make me smile. I played along. "Really? Like, bitchin for sure. Will you paint my nails?"

He squealed and flipped his hand. "Totally! Let's see... are you a scorching pink or wildflower blue?" He reached out and took my hand, and the game suddenly ended. His face fell as he touched his fingertips to the red marks that covered my hand. He spoke softly. "Jesus Christ, Manny. How did this happen?"

I shrugged. "I got a little crazy last night. I didn't take my meds for a few days and... yeah, I had one of my little fits."

"Oh," he said. He let go of my hand at last. The game had come back on but he wasn't watching. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Dylan was just that kind of sweetheart. People didn't like it when I mentioned meds or anything about my condition. It made them uncomfortable. But Dylan was the kind of person who would let you know, right up front, that it was okay to be as open as you wanted to be. He was like the big brother I never had. Or, really, the big brother I'd once had and then lost.

My therapist was constantly reminding me of the importance of talking things out. She said that it's normal to feel sad once in awhile, but once you start holding things inside and letting them build up, that's when it gets out of control. One person can't handle all that on their own. That's how depression starts. You keep things to yourself and suddenly you're so surrounded by your misery you can't see anyone or anything else. You become so alone that you don't think there's anyway out.

That was all good in theory, but it didn't make it any easier to let things out. My therapist didn't seem to realize how few people gave a damn about what I had to say. And even when there was someone, I didn't know where to begin. The pain I felt was impossible to put into words. I didn't really want to talk about it, any of it, ever. But whenever Dylan asked I suddenly wished I really did have something to say. I wished I wasn't so empty inside, so that I could pour everything out for him and we could have secrets together.

"It' no big deal," I said. My own voice sounded far away. "I was grounded and I was just like, trapped. I started freaking out and like... gnawing my fingers, I guess. And then I drove over to Craig's, and like, I barely remember getting home. I just hope my car is still at Craig's and not like, on the back of an 18-wheeler headed for Mexico City." I had to breathe for a minute. It always weirded me out when I actually talked about how fucked up I was out loud. It was too surreal. It's like I wasn't talking about myself. I was just reciting some crazy story I'd seen on the six o'clock news. "But hey, don't say anything about it in front of Paige. Every time I do something crazy it's like, field day for her. She really gets a kick out of shitting all over me."

Dylan seemed unnerved by this comment. He rolled his eyes. "You know, I love my sister and all, but her sadism is just a little creepy. Why do you even put up with it?"

I almost laughed. Almost. "Well, I mean, she's my only real friend. I have this bad habit of ruining the lives of everyone around me, you see, and Paige is like, one of the only ones left standing. To keep her around, I think can stand to put up with a little bit of verbal abuse." I was joking, of course. Well I was kind of telling the truth, but I wanted it to seem like a joke. Dylan wasn't laughing.

"Yeah, well, you're not the only one who's running out of lifelines." His tone was almost bitter.

I stared at him, curious and dumbstruck. "What... what's that supposed to mean?"

He looked at me in surprise. He examined my face for a minute, as if he thought I was kidding. "Come on, Manny. Don't you think it's weird that Paige is suddenly spending so much time with you? Rearranging her whole little Paige-world so that you fit into the picture? I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally love you, kiddo, but Paige... and you... well, you guys are kind of on different levels."

He was right. Paige was like, popular goddess of Degrassi, and I was quite possibly the most hated girl in school. I nodded without taking offense, giving him a look that told him to continue. I was more than used to the Michalchuk sense of brutal honesty.

"Okay, right," he went on. He looked off in thought for a moment, moving his hands around as he searched for the words. "Well I mean, in case you haven't noticed, Paige kind of has this neurotic obsession with controlling everyone around her. Most of her friends have stopped taking shit from her, and you're kind of like, her last resort, you know?"

I shrugged. So Paige liked hanging out with me because she could push me around. Who cared? Pride was a dead concept to me. "I can see what you're saying, but I mean, it really doesn't bother me. Trust me, I've been through alot worse than having someone tell me what to do."

Dylan sighed and looked down. "But I mean... I think it's more than that, Manny. It's like you've become this _hobby _for her. You're her little pet. She _likes it_ when you get in to trouble. It just means more drama for her to take care of. The more fucked up you get, the more you need her, and the more Paige gets this sick satisfaction out of babying you. It's almost like..." He lifted his head and looked right at me. He stopped himself. "I don't know. But I worry about her. You'd tell me if things ever started getting weird with her, right? I mean, if something was up with Paige, you'd let me know, wouldn't you?"

I didn't even know how to answer that. Weird? He wanted me to let him know if things got weird? Look at my life, Dylan, I wanted to say. How the fuck would I be able to tell the difference if things ever did get weird? But then I thought of Paige, sitting so close to me, looking so much like she wanted to kiss me. Was that what Dylan was worried about?

"So, what," I began slowly. "You think Paige might have some kind of crush on me or something?"

Dylan raised his eyebrows, shocked but somewhat impressed that I'd said it first. "Well, yeah, actually. I think she might."

There had always been the shadow of a doubt that I'd been imagining things, but with Dylan's confirmation, the truth became clear. I thought it might freak me out, but it really didn't. People having "crushes" on me was nothing new. "So do think your sister's gay or what?"

Dylan laughed callously. "You know, I used to think so, when we were younger. But then, I was in denial of my own sexuality at the time, so maybe I was just really hoping that someone else would be the weird one." He leaned back on the couch and rested his head with a heavy sigh. He looked weary. It was as if these thoughts, this meticulous analysis of Paige and himself and the world, had always been running through his head, and this was the first time he'd ever let it all out. "But no, actually, I really don't think she's gay. At all. Quite the opposite, really. Paige is just more complicated than that. I think she's just scared. She's having a hard time dealing with the fact that Spinner is big time in love with her. They've been together for two years, and it's gotten really obvious that, you know, this is serious. Spinner is just... well, he's in love. There's no way around it."

He sat back up, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees as he spoke. It was too hard for him to sit still while he tried to flesh all this out. "I think Paige is too scared to deal with the fact that maybe she's in love with him, too. It's like, suddenly Paige has someone who knows her for who she really is, and loves her for it, and always wants to be with her, and that just freaks the hell out of her." He took a breath and looked at me. "She has a hard time letting people in, Manny. She's always been that way. And after, you know, she was raped... she just got that much more closed off from the world. She's pushing her boundaries right now, and you just happen to be the one she's pushing them with. She cares too much about Spin to like, actually cheat on him, but having this little infatuation with you is the next best thing. I almost think she'd rather mess things up than admit what a good thing she has, because it would mean tearing down her walls, and Paige really isn't ready to do that yet."

He flopped back onto the couch yet again, letting out one big exhalation. Blonde curly tresses fell in front of his soft blue eyes. I watched the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and thought about what an amazing person he was. I had always known that Paige was the kind of girl who wore a mask, but I never thought any more about it than that. After all, who wasn't hiding something? But Dylan knew her so much better than that. He understood the pain and confusion that made her who she was. Paige was such a hard person to read, but he could see through her lies and her facades and her mind games. I had never realized that someone could make so much sense of another person.

I was overwhelmingly jealous. Paige was so lucky to have an older brother who cared enough to want to know her and help her. It was one thing to love someone, but it was another thing entirely to really _know _them. I wished I had something like that. I wished I had someone could read me like an open book the way he did with Paige. Nobody had ever known me. Nobody had ever even tried.

I felt tears swell in my eyes. I swallowed hard. "Maybe that's why we're such good friends," I said, trying to make it funny even thought it really wasn't. "We're both fucking crazy."

As it often did, the emptiness and pain of losing Phillip came back in one overpowering wave. It was selfish of me and I knew it, but I didn't care. Paige was the only person who was even somewhat as crazy as me, but the difference between the two of us was that she had people who loved her enough to help her make it through. Being with Dylan reminded me of everything I didn't have, and if it were possibly, I would have easily snatched it all away from Paige and kept it for myself.

"God, I'm such a girl," I said, trying to keep the tears from falling. But they wouldn't. Everything hurt inside me. This was the relapse. This is what happened every time I remembered one bad thing in my life; all the other shit just came tumbling down like dominoes. I was buried. Shows how effective anti-depressants really are. I wiped my tears with the quilt. "Crying out of nowhere." 

Dylan looked over at me, somewhat confused, but sympathetic all the same. "Hey, no, it's all right," he said. Big brothers were supposed to tell you things were all right. "I probably shouldn't have dumped all this on you. It's heavy shit, I know. I'm sorry."

I nodded, but I still couldn't stop myself from sobbing and falling to pieces.

"It's all right." He said it again. "Come here." He held out his arm and I gladly crawled towards him, resting my head on his lap. My sobs faded to gentle moans as Dylan held me close, stroking my hair slowly. I could tell he was very experienced at this.

A few moments later I heard the front door swing open, followed a few seconds later by the soft plunk of groceries dropping onto the kitchen table.

"Guys, pizza's here," I heard Paige call out. Neither of us moved.

She wandered into the living room, not even stopping to look at us, and stood by the sliding glass doors that led outside. "God," she said, standing with her arms folded as she watched the rain. "Could this weekend honestly get any nastier? I mean, is it EVER going to stop raining? Total downer." When no one said anything, she turned to us, slightly puzzled. She noticed I was crying and watched me with "What the fuck?" written all over her face.

"What's wrong with her?" she asked, almost disinterestedly.

Dylan shrugged.

"Hmm, well, pizza's on the table. Help yourselves." She walked out of the room.


	4. and since I am dead

((The song is "Jack's Lament" by Danny Elfman and I do not own it. Just in case this story wasn't messed up enough, this chapter gets pretty controversial and will probably offend someone. Hell, it offends me. The chapter contains some graphic sexuality, heavy language, and strong thematic elements. You have been warned.))

The rain went mad. It was four in the afternoon and the sky was black. The wind screamed angrily while the rain shifted rhythmically back and forth from hard and heavy to gentle and anxious. I sat quietly with the two Michalchuks in their kitchen, slowly making my way through a slice of cheese pizza. Dylan and Paige occasionally picked at one another, but for the most part there was no conversation. We listened to the storm and shared our meal in sleepy silence.

"You know what?" Paige announced suddenly. Dylan and I were still eating, but she had finished and was leaning contemplatively against the counter. "I think we should have a party. We deserve it, after that rip-off of a judging today. And there's no way I'm going to sit around all night and mope."

She seemed to think this was the thing on all of our minds, but in fact Dylan and I just stared at her with an utter lack of interest. "Ooh, great," Dylan said with a sarcastic smirk. "That's just how I wanted to spend my Saturday night. Chumming around with a bunch of high school kids."

Paige folded her arms and stared him down. "Well then, college boy, you can just go along your merry way. Manny and I don't need your help to throw a great party."

I laughed quietly and rolled my eyes, not really looking at either of them. "Um, yeah, we kinda do," I noted.

"Ugh. Whatever. I'm bored, the weather sucks, and we are throwing an effing party. So deal." She reached over to the wall and took the phone out of its cradle. She tossed it to me and I barely managed to catch it, as I was still holding a slice of pizza. "Manny, call Hazel and fire up a phone tree, pronto. Dylan, you call up whoever it is you need to call to work your instant-party magic. I'll go get us the essentials." She grabbed her keys off the table and scurried out of the kitchen.

Dylan and I just looked at each other and shrugged. He whipped out his cell phone, and I dialed Hazel's number. What was the use in fighting it? Paige was on a mission, and there was nothing we could do but become her humble servants. She was very good at getting her way.

You've got to hand it to the Michalchuks: they have mad skills. In only a few hours, Paige's half-baked, last-minute plan had come together masterfully. A cluster of Dylan's college buddies had arrived with more kegs than I'd ever seen in one place at one time. Hazel showed up with Jimmy and Spinner in tow, who were to help rearrange furniture and, when they're usefulness as strapping young boys was used to up, to head to The Dot and spread the word. Hazel and Paige grew giddy as they went through preparations, but I quickly lost interest. It was only another party, after all. Another opportunity for eyes and whispers and everyone hating Manny.

My presence was hardly missed when I decided to slip upstairs to Paige's room. I raided her M&M stash and flipped back and forth between The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Price is Right reruns on cable. When television began to bore me I silenced the idiot box and cranked up Pretty Girls Make Graves on Paige's stereo. I retrieved my sketchbook from my bag, which to my dismay was somewhat damp. I sat in Paige's window and tried sketching the way the rain drizzled against the glass. I focused so hard on the intricate details of the blacks and grays, the refraction of the water and glass, the perpendicular white window panes, but eventually it all turned to nothing but lines and curves.

I flipped to the next page with a heavy sigh and began sketching random doodles instead. This required no thought, no focus. I let the rumbling thunder and the music guide my hand across the white paper. It was soon cluttered with hearts, stars, Pretty Girls lyrics, dancing M&Ms, bleeding smiley faces, and a kitten named Charlie that wanted to be my best friend forever.

Glaring pairs of headlights began to shine through the rain and blackness outside. Even louder than my own music, I could hear the heavy bass of the stereo starting up downstairs, and I knew Paige's party had begun. I was surprised at how many cars I saw pulling up through the window. Maybe the rain had ruined everyone else's Saturday, too, and they were all just waiting for something like this to happen.

I knew that it would be stupid to try and stay hidden all night. I put away my sketch book and wandered over to Paige's closet. I untied her bathrobe and let it fall to the floor and for a moment I caught my nude reflection in the mirror inside her closet door. I turned my head quickly; it was too much for me too look at myself, especially naked. I tried to stay as far away from myself as possible. I was too scared to get to know that girl.

It's funny how even when there's no one I want to impress, I still try anyway. It's like, the one thing I have left. Oh, the other girls may have cleaner reputations than mine. They might be smarter than me. They might be more popular than me. They might have everything I've always wanted and will never have, but the one thing I can still claim is that I look better than all of them. I knew I was pathetic, but as I applied silver glitter to my eyelids, I found it hard to care.

I strolled downstairs awhile later, to where the party of dozens of high schoolers as well as college students had already gained tremendous momentum. I was wearing Paige's clothes, and I felt like I was wearing a new set of skin. The deadened exterior of Manny had been shed and made anew, at least in appearance. My filthy, geniune self still lingered beneath the surface, but I looked damn good on the outside, and that was really the most I could hope for any more.

As I weaved through the crowd I noticed the familiar turning of heads. I was a classic wreck-on-the-side-of-the-road. People knew they shouldn't look, but they just had to. I could always feel their eyes on me, the weight bearing down and suffocating me, but I pretended not to acknowledge any of them. This was the game I played, and I had learned to play it well.

I got myself a beer and planted myself on a wall, surveying the excitement around me. I spotted Paige with Spinner, laughing as they mumbled their ridiculous honey bee bull shit to one another. It just wasn't fair, that two people could be so happy and so in love with each other. If you had asked me when I was twelve, I would have told you it was beautiful. Ask me now, and I'll tell you it's just another piece of evidence as to how much God hates me. Paige is just as fucked up, if not more so, than I am. And somehow she has that picture-perfect, fairy-tale-ending, sugar-frosted life that I've dream of since the seventh grade. She has everything I want, and she fucking takes it all for granted.

I tried to shake away those thoughts, drown them in gulps of cheap beer. That's when I saw him, walking towards me, through the amber liquid in my plastic cup. But I pretended like I didn't.

"Hey, slow down there," he said, approaching me with his hands in his pockets. "You want to remember where you are when you wake up, don't you?"

Oh, haha. Craig's so funny. I didn't laugh. I didn't say anything.

He coughed. "Well, um, hey. Your car's still at my house."

"I know." I tried not looking directly at him.

"...So I guess you should come by and get it."

I nodded. Still fighting his eyes. "Okay. When?"

He shrugged and scratched his head. "Whenever. I guess you could just ride home with me after the party."

"Yeah, okay." I was as nonchalant as I could manage to be. I knew that I wasn't going home tonight, so whether it was at Paige's or Craig's house that I crashed made little difference. My eyes flitted toward his and the pain of last night hit me hard again. Why did I always lose my head when it came to Craig? And why we were STILL friends through all of this, even when shit continually spiraled out of control for us?

But that's just how it was between us. I hurt him, he hurt me, and we would forgive each other without saying a word. We kind of had to. Fuck-ups stick together, it can't be helped.

"Hey, Craig," greeted a darkly-clad redhead. I suddenly wanted to be somewhere else. She turned her head and spotted me, and I recognized the exact same feelings in her eyes. I knew she'd come over here by mistake; Ellie tried to avoid as much interaction with me as possible. She mumbled in greeting to me.

Craig shifted his weight, clearly feeling the awkwardness of the situation. "Um, hey, El. How's it going?"

Ellie shifted slightly so that her back was facing me as she began to engage Craig in some dull discussion about Ansel Adams. I rolled my eyes and took an angry sip of my beer. I had grown more than used to Ellie's immeasurable hatred of me. I mean, I got smashed and banged her boyfriend at Heather Sinclair's New Years Eve party. Oops, there goes another relationship, courtesy of Slut Santos. Who could blame her for hating me? She had just as much reason as everyone else.

It's not like I didn't feel bad about it. It's not like I just do these things because I _want _to. I just keep slipping up and losing control and the next thing I know it's raining shit all over everyone in my wake. But Ellie didn't care about that. She only saw Manny the Slut, the Boyfriend Stealer, the Heartless Bitch. And she's done everything she can over the past year to make sure I never forget it.

It only got worse, of course, when she and Craig started becoming good friends, bonding over photography or some shit. That put Craig in the awkward position of balancing his time between us, because it was obvious he couldn't be friends with both of us at the same time. It drove me crazy. Why couldn't she just fuck off and resent me from afar? Did she have to take one of the last things I had left? Did she honestly hate me that much, that it wasn't enough just to let me wallow in the misery that was my existence? No, she had to push me that much further. There were times when I wondered if she really was a witch, like people said she was, and had been casting shitluck spells over me the whole time. Sure, my life had been spiraling downward for sometime, but it was after the incident with Sean that things really fell apart and I came into my current state.

But beneath all that anger, I knew that none of it was really Ellie. It was me, always, my fault, everything. The mistake I made with Sean... that was my last chance. My last chance to be a good girl, now that I was medicated and taken care of, and I fucked it up. After that I gave up trying to be good, trying to be normal, trying to be someone people could love. I drank and I lied and I slept around because I was too tired to try and salvage the old Manny. Why not become that person everyone seemed to think I was?

I let out a loud sigh, slipping in front of Ellie to catch Craig's attention, flipping a wave of black silken curls in Ellie's face. "You know, I think I see Liberty over there. I'm gonna go swing by and say hey." I placed a soft hand on Craig's shoulder and put on a devilish grin as I slithered past him. "I guess I'll see you later tonight, right Craig?" I gave a flirtatious wink, in spite of Ellie's disgusted glare, before strutting away. If Ellie wanted to hate me for being a slut, then I at least had to live up to her expectations. It was all I knew how to do any more, live up to the reputation. And I was good at it.

Of course, I hadn't spotted Liberty, and even if I had, why the hell would she even want to talk to me? I made my way instead to the keg and topped off my plastic chalice. The next person to step up to the tap just happened to be Dylan, who stopped and turned to me with playfully accusing eyes.

"Manuela, how many beers have you had?" he asked in his best big brother voice.

"Numero dos," I said, holding my cup up proudly and hitting it against his. "Last one, promise. If there's one thing I don't want tonight, it's a scene. I think last night alone filled my drama quota for the weekend."

Dylan smiled warmly at me and pat my shoulder. "Yeah, well, don't be afraid to have at least a little fun. You deserve it."

I smiled in return and nodded as we parted ways. Underneath my smile I couldn't help but think, _I don't deserve anything_.

I drank as I walked through the crowd, watching all of them while trying to pretend like I wasn't being watched myself. It was all like some movie I'd seen one too many times before. There was no fun to be had here. Thrill and excitement had long been gone from my life. It wasn't about fun. At the most, I could aim for contentment. Survival. Not being in absolute despair. There was no point in wishing for more than that.

A potent wave of beer-breath was suddenly upon me, along with a pair of greedy, sweaty hands on my shoulders. "Manueeeeeeeeeela," the stumbling teenage boy hissed into my ear. "What's up, baby?"

I turned my head and wrinkled my nose at the sight of him. "Oh, Sully. You're drunk. And you're touching me. How wonderful."

My sarcasm went right over his head and he laughed as he placed an alcohol-laced kiss on my cheek. "Feel like dancing?"

If there's one guy I slept with one too many times, it was Sully. I mean, I guess I could have teased him with a dance or something, put on a good show for Ellie and the rest of the crowd, but something in me was just sick of it. I pried his hands off of me and less-than-gracefully shoved him aside. "I would, but you know... fuck no." I rolled my eyes and evaded him quickly. I swam through the heavy crowd until I reached the sliding glass door that led outside. I was greatly in need of a smoke and some fresh air; as if those two could ever actually go hand in hand.

I was surprised by how much the storm had intensified. Full-grown trees swayed like blades of grass in the heavy winds. Blaring thunder echoed through the black skies while rain pelted the earth at shifting angles. There were a few scattered people standing beneath the plastic awning over Paige's back porch, all of them chilling quietly in the shadows, obviously in need of a moment away from the chaos as well.

I savored the sound of plastic crackling as I tore open the fresh pack of cigarettes I'd begged Dylan to buy for me. Soon after I took my first nicotine hit, I realized the orange flicker of a flame from my lighter had attracted a visitor from the shadowy corner. He was tall, shaggy hair, baggy clothes, face still indistinguishable. "Can I bum a cigarette?" he said tiredly. His voice made me shudder. I knew I'd heard it before.

I leaned against the wall and took a puff. With a reluctant sigh, I held the pack out to him. I noticed the sickly yellow coloring collecting around his dirty fingernails. He put the cigarette to his lips and leaned in to let me light it.

The fluorescent light creeping outside through the window fell onto his face, lighting up those sharp gray eyes, and I felt my heart stop cold for a moment. "Holy fuck," I exhaled.

I recognized him, he recognized me, and the moment was somehow completely fitting. He smiled, and it was the same, twisted, "I don't give a fuck" smile I remembered. Funny how that smile had seemed charming before I knew the truth about him. But now that I saw his face so close to mine, I wondered how I could have bought it even for a second. There was such an obvious deviousness in his eyes, a burning dark quality to his smile.

"Are you going to give me a light or are you just going to stand there and torture me?" he asked.

I _should_ have tortured him. I should have screamed profanities in his face and lit him on fire. Instead I flicked my lighter and held it gently to the tip of his cigarette. "You really are fucking something," I said emotionlessly. "You do realize Paige is going to, like, murder you if she finds out you're at her house, don't you?"

He shrugged smugly and took a puff of his cigarette. "What, you mean she's STILL hung up on that?"

The incredulousness of his words, of his mere presence, left me speechless. Any other person would have spun into a fit of rage at the sight of him. Any normal person would have been unable to control the anger I should have been feeling at that point. I wanted to, I tried to. But I just watched him, only vaguely discomforted. It was too hard to feel anything. I had seen and done too many unthinkable things for him to faze me. The drugs weighed me down with apathy and despair.

I watched him smoke and realized how completely different he looked since the last time I'd seen him. Long faded was the fresh and charmismatic Dean of high school. The athletic soccer build had withered away, and all that remained was pale, half-starved skin and bones hiding beneath his dirty clothes. A neglected garden of shitbrown hair fell unstrategically over his yellowed, sunken face. All life and color seemed to have been sucked dry from him. His eyes were heavy and buried in dark circles, and had the perpetually-wandering quality of a junkie vigilantly watching for the next high. He was, simply, destroyed. But not in a way that would evoke pity. He was a tactile portait of poetic justice, of karma working the way it should.

"What happened to you?" I asked conversationally.

He laughed soundlessly. "What happened to _you_?" He brought the cigarette to his mouth and I noticed the slight but constant shaking of his fingers. "You look real different when you're not shaking those pom poms, Manny."

Hearing his icy, serpentine voice hiss my name was somehow frightening. And intriguing. I raised my eyebrows. "You remembered my name. I'm impressed. I didn't think a stud like you would have time to keep track of all the girls you try to fuck over."

He laughed, and I shivered involuntarily. "Yeah, well, don't flatter yourself. You wouldn't even be on my radar if you didn't have such a hyped rep. I hear stories all the time. Shit, I hear stories about you from people I don't even know." He guffawed stupidly again, puffing and coughing at the same time. "For awhile I didn't think it was the same chick, but sure enough I come to find you're like some kind of fuck machine. Hard to imagine, coming from someone who didn't even know how to give good tongue when I first met you."

I chuckled icily. It must have been a real blow to Dean's ego, for my reputation to be so far-reaching that even people from other schools knew all about it. "I guess it must suck to be the only guy like, ever, not to get some ass from me. But you know, at the time I was saving myself for the world's biggest asshole, and _you_ turned out to be a rapist. So I'm thinking I made the right decision, eh?" I blew a cloud of smoke into his face before turning on my heel to leave.

"Hey," he barked, grabbing my arm. His fingers clutched me so tightly I knew it would leave bruises. And yet I didn't try to stop him. "_Accused _rapist. They didn't prove shit."

"Oh, right, and I care? Everyone knows what you did. What the fuck are you even DOING here? Is it not enough that you got away with rape? What sick pleasure could you possibly get from terrorizing Paige any more?"

He shrugged and smirked, his face utterly absent of remorse. "What can I say? I went to my little cousin's cheerleading thing and I saw you guys there. I started walking down memory lane and the next thing I know, word on the street is Spirit's throwing a party. How could I resist?"

"You're unbelievable." Only, deep down, I knew that it was completely believable. It made perfect sense. He was a heartless, self-serving fuckface who used sex for personal gain and hurting people. And would he ever repent? No. He just kept digging his grave deeper. He reminded me too much of myself.

His response was a careless shrug. We drifted into comfortable silence and smoked, oblivious to the storm that roared angrily all around us. When he'd reached the end of his cigarette he tossed it aside, out into the rain, and turned to me. "So, listen," he said, bringing his voice down. He leaned in close to me, reeking of unwashed laundry. "A buddy of mine told me you've got like, the hook-up with a shitload of pills." He was near enough for me to feel the warmth of his body, for me to look inside his mouth and see his slowly rotting teeth. He was dirty and smelly and broken, and I so wanted to reach out and touch him.

"Who the hell told you that?" I asked. I racked my brain and tried to remember what wild weekend had involved me handing out pills to one of Dean's friends. Nothing came to mind. Who could honestly keep track anymore? I no longer questioned how people knew things about me. My sins were written all over my skin; they shone bright above my head like a neon sign.

He shrugged, and I began to notice his antsyness. He stared right into me, desperate, hungry, and I saw something remarkable there: weakness. There was just something so alluring about it. "So, hey, we're practically old friends, right? How about sharing the love? Hook me up."

I snorted. "Yeah, sure. And what's in it for me? Oh, right, nothing. Get lost, Dean. This is too pathetic to watch, even for me."

He grabbed me again, this time putting both hands on my shoulders, hurting me. I felt the rough brick of the house grazing my back. I suddenly began to understand the helplessness Paige must have felt when she was raped. Looking into his eyes, I saw that there was nothing in Dean's mind that said, "You've gone too far." He wanted what he wanted, and he would do what had to be done to get it. "Come on, little girl, just show me what you've got, and then I'll leave. I'll get the fuck out of here and I'll never bother your little friend Spirit again, okay?"

It was one of those moments in time that happened so quickly I had barely even registered it. In retrospect, I was able to look at that moment and realize the idiocy of my actions. I mean, couldn't I _see _that things wouldn't end well? Maybe I could. Maybe I saw all along the wreck at the end of the road I was speeding down. Maybe I _tried _to fuck up like I did. It seemed as though I always would, without fail, seek out the worst possible outcome of any scenario and dive right into it.

Whatever the reason, that stormy Saturday night proved to be no different. Stupidly, I snuck upstairs with Dean. Stupidly, I poured the contents of my bag all over Paige's bed. Stupidly I watched as he sifted through the bottles and prescription labels with my name on them. He asked me which ones would get him really fucked up, and stupidly I had no answer for him. He decided to take one of each, a pretty rainbow in his hand, and as he stupidly tried to suck on my neck I stupidly let him.

Kissing him was indescribably vile. I tasted his voice, his slimey words, all over the walls of his mouth. I tasted the familiar powdery consistency of my meds on his tongue. I tasted his rotting teeth. I didn't stop. He was so horribly, deliciously disgusting. Pants around his ankles, Paige's red skirt pushed up around my stomach, my perfect curls getting tangled up in sweat, gentle screams and hands roaming with no remorse. Careless, senseless fucking while Pretty Girls Make Graves kept playing on repeat. I was a lousy human being for giving him what he wanted. He got my drugs and my sex and I knew he didn't recognize the irony. I felt used and I hated it but I loved it because that's the way I loved to feel. I mean, I had to feel _something._

I was so lost in him, in my pain, in our collective stupidity, that reality was merely an afterthought. It was when the door swung open and I saw Paige, her livid face illuminated by the yellow hall light, that I returned to my senses. I've never heard so many screaming voices at one time. I had no time to think at all, because before I knew it Paige was crying and barking obscenities and throwing heavy objects. I rolled off the bed and ducked for cover. I tried to explain, calm her down, but Paige was so deep inside her rage I don't think she even heard me. Her angry words were barely decipherable through her sobs.

Dylan and Spinner dashed into the room shortly after Paige, adding to the screaming and confusion. Spinner flew into a fury without missing a beat. He didn't even need to understand the situation; he saw Dean and immediately dove for him. Dylan tried to comfort Paige but she thrashed her way free of his arms and continued to rant violently. She looked so torn between who she wanted to hate more, me or Dean. I tried to sneak away into a corner, not be a part of this, but Paige was soon hovering over my face, screaming.

Bitch. Psycho. Slut. Cuntface. Have you lost your fucking mind? I hate you. Her words shredded me apart. I'd never heard her swear so much in her life. I'd never seen such pain in her eyes.

Dylan finally managed to grab hold of her and pull her away from me. She fought him off again but this time she just gave up. She collapsed to the floor, tears flooding her face, and leaned against the pink mattress of her bed. Spinner and Dean continued to kick the shit out of each other in the background, but Paige didn't even notice. She was in a different place.

"Manny," Dylan commanded firmly. He grabbed my shoulders firmly and looked me in the eye. I wished he wouldn't. The shame was overwhelming. "I think you'd better go now."

I opened my mouth to say something, but only guilty silence came out. I looked at him, then at Paige, then at Spinner and Dean. My heart crumbled. I hadn't meant for any of this. I hadn't meant to be such an awful friend, such an awful person. I would have given anything to go back in time, erase this entire mess, undo all the wrong that I did. But what was the point? I was just going to fuck it up again.

I looked into the clear blue of Dylan's eyes and I wanted so badly for him to know that I was sorry. That I'd change it if I could. That I was powerless to stop all the madness that seemed to happen when I was around. But again I had no words. Again my apology would be worthless. I simply nodded vaguely and slipped out of the room, leaving him to deal with the mess. Dylan would make things right again. He would take care of Paige. He knew how to be the person I could never be.

The walk of shame I made as left Paige's house was a long one. I tried to break through the crowd as quickly as possible, but the whispers and stares enveloped me like quicksand and made it hard to move. Sometimes I got so tired of being the one they looked at, the one they laughed at, the one they blamed. I so wanted to end the cycle.

I walked out of the Michalchuk house, leaving behind me the ruins of yet another Manny Santos disaster. The vibrations of the explosion seemed to echo into the sky and fall back down on me with the rain. It poured down so cold and heavy. I wondered if I could just drown in it.


	5. the dreams that you dare to dream

Song: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, popularized by Judy Garland. Don't own it, of course.

Final Words: Here it is, the last chapter. This fic has been such a trip to write because while it takes place only over a single weekend, I've had to incorporate the events from a year and a half of Manny's life. Not to mention the fact that it's taken me several months to get it done. I know the timeline is probably confusing. My advice to the reader: Read it over from the beginning. It will probably make a lot more sense. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed.

o o o o o o o o

I have found myself in so many unbearable situations that few things really faze me any more. But as I trudged down the road with nowhere to go, having just hurt one of my only friends in the worst possible way, I couldn't help but notice how low I'd sunk. The rain slammed down so hard I couldn't see two feet in front of me. I was soaked to the bone, wearing practically nothing and freezing my ass off. I'd forgotten all about my shoes in my hurry to escape the party, and now my bare feet crept along the cold wet concrete.

I soon heard the low roar of a car engine and a tacky, dented-up sports car pulled up next to me. The driver's identity was concealed by the darkness and thick rain, but the window came down and I saw Dean's face, grinning stupidly. "Get in," he said.

"Fuck off," I spat through chattering teeth.

He laughed, soullessly, echoing through the empty night. "Get in the fucking car, baby. Where else are you gonna go? Haha, you don't even have any fucking shoes."

It was already so, so cold, and his laughter was like shards of ice, pinning me down. I was so tired of him, of his voice, of his fucking face. But damn him, he was right. In that moment I was more alone than I could ever remember being. I was miles from home, from any safe place. No one was coming for me. There was no one I could call. I had nowhere to go but the passenger's seat of Dean's car. He chuckled harshly as I shut the door and put on my seatbelt. He struck his foot on the gas and we sped away from Paige's house.

Warbled death metal crooned from the radio as I rode with him, far away from the clean suburbs of Paige's neighborhood and to the other side of town, where the buildings were cracked and the alleys were dark. Dean drove with only one hand on the wheel. The other held a lit cigarette and waved excitedly around as he rambled, recalling meaningless and unfunny stories. You could tell he'd done heavy drugs over the past few years by the way he talked. He was completely without focus, but he was always laughing. He liked the sound of his own voice. I tried to tune out him and his horrible music. I stared intently into the merciless rain, silently trying to exist somewhere other than that smelly car with him. Numb, Manny, I told myself. Just be numb. Do whatever it takes to get through tonight.

He pulled into the empty parking lot of Sherman's Grocery and we got out. We went to the side of the building, beneath the cheap plastic awning, where a tall man in black sweats was waiting. His face was a stone scowl as he and Dean spoke, pretending as though I was just a piece of scenery. I tried not to follow the conversation; I was numb. I was so far from caring that I even found myself letting Dean hand over all the pills I had in exchange for a lousy hit of heroin from the shady man. A mercy bargain, the man said through his scowl. Dean thanked him and took my hand, leading me to the other side of the glowing blue Pepsi machine.

We sat on the algid sidewalk and I watched as he went through the tedious, ritualistic motions of making the powdered substance suitable for injection. His crazed eyes were alight with joy. This was the first thing I'd noticed all night that actually seemed to catch his attention. The rest of the world, it seemed, was merely a blur that passed by him. He was on constant edge, and now that I saw him like this, I pieced it all together. This was what drove him. This was what it meant to be a junkie. Nothing else, not even a good lay, was worth anything to him. He just wanted this. He was endlessly chasing it.

My stomach turned as I watched the thick needle plunge into the pale flesh of his arm. His eyes rolled back. A pleasured moan escaped his cold, purple lips. I could have thrown up. He sank into a peaceful state as he sat there, soaking it in. I could feel the drug coursing through him, traveling through his veins by the beating of his heart, just by watching his face. He turned to me with a foul smile and mumbled, "You gotta try this, Manny. I promise, promise, promise you'll feel better."

A shaky voice that didn't sound like mine came out of my mouth and told him there was no way I could do that. He laughed, that awful laugh, and it rang through the rain and the empty parking lot. That laugh, that smile, that thin, punctured arm. I wanted to cry but I couldn't because I had to stay numb. I was numb as he stroked my hair and laughed and made nonsensical promises. Numb as he touched my arm and found a plump vein. Numb as he smiled and gently guided the needle into me. A tear fell from my face and he laughed again, and I wished I'd had the strength to say no.

Soon those regrets were forgotten. They melted away, along with everything else I knew. When it hit me, when it took over my senses, everything suddenly became so clear. I understood Dean. I understood him perfectly. I knew exactly how he slept at night. I now knew why it was so easy for him to walk around with that arrogant smile, completely untouched by all the wrong he had done. Dean was untouchable. And now I knew why.

I was in another world. I had never known that a state of being so completely free of pain could exist. Guilt was utterly absent from this place. My mind was drowning in a tranquility so pure I could never capture it, even if I searched forever for the words. It was freedom. Complete freedom. Baptism. Rebirth. Dismantlement and reconstruction. I felt clean in a way I thought I'd never be able to feel again. For years I'd been buried in darkness, but suddenly I felt like there was nothing in the world but light. The pureness I felt was boundless. Do you know what it's like to feel like you will never ever hurt again? All I KNEW was hurt. No other existence seemed even remotely within my reach. But as I laid my head against the buzzing Pepsi machine I saw hope. I was pure again. I was sinless. I was bare. I was free.

I don't know what happened to Dean. I didn't give a fuck what happened to him. I just tried to sit perfectly still, and soak up all the perfection of this moment that I could. It was too much. Too much right for me to swallow all at once. I had believed for a long time that drugs couldn't fix me, but now I saw how wrong I was. I felt whole. I felt real. I felt like I could never get enough of this feeling. Heroin tasted like happy. There would never be anything more beautiful in my life than that moment of overwhelming bliss.

But reality. Oh, reality. When it came, it came fast and hard. I first felt the sun, blaring, and the sticky air of the afternoon. I opened my eyes slowly and saw the dirty ground I'd slept on. My cheek was pressed hard against the asphalt. I was exhausted beyond reason, like I'd been to Hell and back. Hands were touching me, shaking me, saying my name loudly.

I tilted my head and squinted my eyes against the sun to see him, hovering over me, brow furled in ambiguous concern. His face relaxed somewhat when he saw that I'd woken up. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice gruff as usual, but caring all the same.

I nodded slowly, even though the answer was actually a firm hell no. I held out my hand to him and he took it, pulling me off the ground. "Where am I?" I said softly. All my anxieties over the day before trickled down the inside of my mind like a waterfall. God I hated waking up. It would always bring me back to the life I hated, to the skin I could never shed.

"You're at Sherman's, on Seventh Street. You uh, looked pretty dead there."

I nodded, slowly, taking in the scene. "Yeah... thanks, Sean." I reached for my hair, thinking I would smooth it out a bit, but then I realized how absurd that was. There was no smoothing over the mess I was. I couldn't imagine how broken I looked to him. Did I look like a girl who'd spent the night on the street, in the rain? Did I look like a girl who'd fucked a rapist in her best friend's bed? Did I look like a girl who'd shot up heroin with a lonely junkie? Just how bad did it all look, on the outside? How deeply were my crimes etched into my skin?

"You don't have any shoes on."

I frowned and looked down at my purple-polished toenails. "I know," I said, leaning against the soda machine. I brushed my toes against the concrete. "These aren't even my clothes. Do you have a cigarette?"

He wrinkled his nose and spit a wad of snot and saliva sideways to the ground. "I don't smoke." He picked up a large brown bag of groceries from beside his feet. "Are you... gonna be okay?"

It was such a funny, meaningless question. Would I be okay? No, never. Reality would always wake me. I didn't know what okay was any more.

"I'll be fine. I've got some cigarettes in my bag..." As I glanced around I became aware of the absence of my bag. I searched the ground and spotted it at last, several feet away, half of the contents poured out of it. Dean had taken my headphones, my cigarettes, my wallet, two Radiohead CDs, and a pack of strawberry bubblegum. Probably more, too, but I carried so much crap around with me I couldn't possibly expect to keep track of it all. With a heavy groan and I got on my knees and began to scoop my life back up.

I heard Sean exhale slowly, almost reluctantly. "My house is just up the street, you know. You can come with me... get cleaned up, use my phone."

I slid my bag on my shoulder and slowly came to my feet again. I shifted my weight for a moment and looked at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's chill. No problem."

"Thanks."

As we trodded across Sherman's parking lot, Sean warned me to watch out for broken glass. I said thank you. The walk down the block was filled with an unusual but almost comfortable quiet. I knew this street. I remembered it well from grade seven, back in the days when Sean and I were friends. Walking down this street with him was like stepping through a time portal, bridging the gap of the high school years that had separated us. Except, time was impossible to undo. Nothing could change the countless things that had made us into different people and drawn us away from grade seven simplicity.

When I was twelve, walking down this street, it would have been incomprehensible to me that I would someday have slept with this boy. Granted, the details of that night were blurred by a river of alcohol. Fuzzy pictures of his skin and lips, the vague memory of touching his hair... being found by his screaming girlfriend, and the extreme difficulty I had trying to string words together when J.T. demanded an explanation. Only empty, nothing pieces remained in my memory. It was the damage, the aftermath, that lingered in the places that mattered.

Sean took me inside his house. He lent me a pair of too-big black sweatpants and a white t-shirt. I used his phone to call Craig, who was more than bewildered when I asked him to come pick me up at Sean Cameron's house. But he was used to my madness, and he didn't ask questions, he only said he'd be about twenty minutes.

I sat in Sean's kitchen, waiting as he put away his meager groceries. It consisted of the widest variety of microwaveable foods I'd ever seen. I surveyed his house, littered with pizza boxes and unwashed dishes, dirty laundry and the inescapable but tasty stench of boy. It wasn't so bad, I thought, though it was undeniably the home of a teenage boy living on his own. A shithole, by definition, but it was his all the same. He called this place home and he felt safe and happy here. I tried to remember what that felt like.

When he was finished, he glanced at me and a spark of fear danced briefly in his eyes. He wasn't comfortable with me here, I realized. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with me. I wanted to let him know that nothing had to be done with me. I was a crasher, I was used to this, I knew how to stay out of the way until I'd gotten what I needed.

He offered me a soda and I accepted, and we drank Dr. Pepper together in uncertain silence. I asked him how he'd been doing and he said fine. He asked me the same question and I said fine. What remarkably boring lies.

"Anything exciting going on in your life?" I asked, examining the circle of condensation my soda can had left on the table.

He looked back at me, dead expression on his face. "Nope. You?"

"No. Same old, same old."

Sean laughed dully. I felt the weight of his eyes on me. "Waking up passed out in front of a grocery store is just part of the routine, then? I'd hate to catch you on an off day."

I wasn't sure if I felt hurt by that or not. I wasn't sure if he'd wanted me to feel hurt or not. I shrugged. "You know Manny Santos. That bitch is crazy."

"Yeah. I've heard." He got up and grabbed a giant bag of M&Ms. He poured some out on the table for me without being asked, showing a good knowledge of women, and then began popping the rest into his mouth one by one as he leaned against the counter. "But I really don't get it. What the hell's wrong with you, Manny? What are you doing to yourself?"

It was a startling and troubling question to be asked. I had never thought of this, any of this, as things I did to myself. They were just things that happened. I had lost control a long time ago. "Don't start in on me, Sean. You don't know me, so don't try and pretend to understand anything in my life. You've got plenty of your own shit to deal with I'm sure, why try digging through mine? Or maybe that IS why you're digging through mine. Out of booze? Figure because you found me passed out I must have a hook up?"

"Funny, Manny." His face had tensed and reddened. He was clutching the countertop. It was so easy to push Sean's buttons. That temper of his. I remembered when his temper used to scare me. I used to be so scared for Emma, worried Sean would lose it and go crazy on her. But now his anger intrigued me. I wondered just how much he knew about real pain. "I've been sober for almost a year. Unlike you, I knew I had a problem, and I did something about it. I got help. That's more than you ever did."

I laughed tiredly. This was not the place I wanted to be. In Sean Cameron's shithole, explaining my shithole life. He didn't know a damn thing. "Are you kidding? I've gotten more help than I ever wanted. I can't turn around without being helped. I shove so many pills down my throat every day I feel like I'm going to fucking choke on all the help I get."

Sean rolled his eyes. "That's not help. That's just a good excuse to fuck up all the time and not have to take the blame."

"Oh, what do you know?" I shoved a handful of M&Ms into my mouth.

"I know that there are two kinds of people in this world. People who deal with their problems, and people who don't. See, your parents have got lots of money, right? So they can pay for you to get therapy or medication or whatever. But some of us have to live in the real world, and in the real world, no one gives a shit if you're sad or imbalanced. In the real world you just have to get over yourself and live your life. You can't just sit around and feel sorry for yourself and wait for pills to fix all your problems."

"Oh, fuck you. My life is just a little more complicated than that, okay? You think I just like, feel bad all the time for no reason? I've been through alot of shit, okay, shit worse than just being poor. You don't even know."

"Pshh. Try me."

Was he kidding? There was so much. "How about my dead brother? My psycho parents? My abortion?"

He shrugged. "Shit happens. Doesn't mean you just have to shut down and stop trying."

"I have been trying." Had I? "Every time I try things just get worse."

"And taking pills is going to make it better?"

"YES, okay? It might not seem to make any difference to you, but it's all I have. I feel like shit ALL the time. But at least when I'm on the meds, I feel like I have at least some solace. You just... you don't know. You don't know what I'm like when I lose control." November. November. The tears I shed that month were haunting me. Why was Sean doing this? Why did he just HAVE to ask questions? He didn't understand that the answers were forcing me to face all the things I tried to forget.

"Like what? How bad could it be?"

I was silent. Numb.

"See. It really isn't that bad. You're just trying to make things harder than they really are."

"Am I?" I picked up a red M&M and stared at it for a minute before I put it in my mouth. "Do you know why the finally put me on meds? What finally broke me, and made my parents realize I needed help? Last November, I went after J.T. with a knife."

I heard Sean's breath catch slightly. Good. I was glad I'd said something that big, tough Sean Cameron couldn't shrug off. But I wasn't glad. Because it was something I'd been trying to forget so long. I'd said the words I'd tried to convince myself for a long time weren't true. Now I was shaking as I tried so hard not to think about what I'd just said.

I saw all of it in my head, the blood, the screams, the tears. I suddenly remembered what a horrible person I was at my worst. I suddenly remembered why it was so much easier to be numb. I ate more M&Ms. I focused intently on the chewing, chewing, chewing. Grinding chocolate between my teeth, need to bite my tongue. My fingers began to itch.

Sean watched me. "Why?"

Why? There is no why. I don't want to think about it. Nibble, nibble. Shaking. Itching. Can't breathe. Can't feel. Don't want to. Chew chew chew. Scratch. Don't want to be here. Want to be somewhere else. Want to feel something else. There's nothing else to feel. Chew. Swallow. Exhale.

Let it out, Manny. Just let it out.

"I don't... I mean, it wasn't on purpose. I was out of my fucking mind. They told me that, later. All those nightmares I'd been having. I couldn't stop thinking about Philip, and the baby... Everytime I closed my eyes I saw blood. I saw dying. I stopped eating and sleeping. I'd gone without food or sleep for three days. I was just... delirious. And I was so tired, but I was afraid to close my eyes. I was just... I don't know. I felt like I was dying. I kept waiting and waiting to die but it never happened, and I was starting to lose it. I knew I'd fall asleep soon and I didn't want that to happen. So that's when... you know, I got the knife, and... and I was really going to do it. I was ready to end it. I try to tell myself I wasn't really going to do it, but I think if J.T. hadn't walked in when he did... I just wanted to die, you know? And I was just, out of it, you know, and when J.T. tried to stop me I turned on him... and the knife... it went right through his arm... I still don't think I've ever said sorry."

I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe. I watched as my tears fell onto the uneven table, into the pile of colored candies. For a year I had tried not to relive that day. In a sea of pills and lies and sleeping around, I had tried to drown myself from those memories. Every day after November, I tried to start over. I kept trying to reinvent myself, but all the garbage I tossed over my shoulder just piled up behind me. I dragged it through the streets with me everywhere I went, like a bag lady. I couldn't look back. I could never look back. I had to numb myself from the past and move forward.

But that didn't fix anything. By hiding from the pain I only made it worse. I had to turn around and face my mess. I would never get better if I didn't accept the heartache, and _let it out. _I understood that now. With my secrets spilled all over Sean's table, I saw that it was so much better to let it out.

Sean's hands came down on my shoulders, holding me as I sobbed. They were strong mechanic's hands, hands that had worked through many problems. They kept me still. They kept me breathing.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be."

I cried the whole time I sat there, and he kept his hands there through it all. When Craig showed up I wiped my tears and Sean walked me to the door.

"Are you gonna be okay?" he asked me, leaning against the pane of the doorway. He glanced at Craig for a moment, sitting in the front seat of his car.

Again with the "okays." It was too far away for me to grasp just yet. I shrugged and smiled. "Maybe. You know, I like you, Sean. You fuck up alot. I think I can relate."

He raised his eyebrows. "Gee, thanks."

"No problem. So maybe... we should hang out sometime."

There was a pause as he exhaled, probably contemplating the potential danger of hanging out with the resident psychoslut. But he nodded and said he'd call me sometime. It is awfully hard to say no to me, after all. I thanked him for the hands and the candy and the Dr. Pepper, and I slid into the familiar passenger's seat of Craig's car.

The sun was golden in the sky as we rode to Craig's house. It was hard for me to believe that only last night the skies had been filled with an angry storm. Kids were playing in the park.

"So," Craig said, turning Pink Floyd down just a bit. "You and Sean, eh?" He tried to keep a straight face, pretending to pay very close attention to the road. As if the idea of "me and Sean" only vaguely interested him.

I smirked. It was cute to me, almost comforting, that Craig still had the slightest bit of possessiveness over me. I knew his imagination was running wild, assuming no doubt that I'd spent the night at Sean's.

I rolled down the window and ran my fingers through my hair. "Yeah, maybe," I responded. The air tasted so clean.

Craig scratched his ear. "Oh. Cool." He turned his music back up.

A few minutes later we arrived at his house, where my car had been waiting since Friday night. It had been such a long weekend, and for once, I didn't dread going home.

"Thanks for the ride, Craig."

He scratched the back of his messy head and put his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, no problem. Anytime, Manny."

I walked over to him and touched his hand. "I think right now you just might be my only friend left in the world. I need you, you know? I think right now I'm going to need you more than ever. I hope you'll always be there for me. I love you."

His eyes were bright with concern, but the confusion on his face told me he didn't really understand. It wasn't that important that he did. Craig never understood what kept us connected. But he was always there, inexplicably, and that's what I was counting on.

He nodded. "Anytime."

I didn't hang around any longer. I hopped into my car, kitty key ring in hand, and searched the cluttered glove compartment until I found a cigarette. I let my hand drape over the open window as I drove away, smoke billowing out as sunshine fluttered in. I cranked the volume of my stereo and Michelle asked me in her bittersweet croon, "Are you happy now?"

The answer to that question would take years. There was so much shit yet to hit the fan. But for once, I could see beyond the depression. Far, far on the horizon was the faintest possibilty of actually being okay. And that was enough to make me smile. For the moment.


End file.
